An Old Peg In A New Hole

John Ramsey Miller

I’m am not old. I hear that all the time, but I am sixty-two and often I feel old. I see myself working at a slower pace than I used to, and not just with the writing, but with most things. I have never been an organized person, and once in a while I jump into the chaos of my desk, my closet, my tool shed and put things on hangars, in ordered stacks and in proper cubbies. I admire the organized Miller world, and for a few days I keep the organization organized. After a few bits of time have passed I have scattered my tools all over the property, my desk is buried, and my closet looks like I’ve taken it back to college with me. It’s just me.

Here’s the thing. I need to be organized to write. We all do. I remember the stories of Kerouac’s editor getting his handwritten-partially typed manuscripts as loose sheets and legal tablets all shoved into a grocery bag or two and I smile. None of us believe that could be true, even though I have presented my financial dealings to my accountant that way.

I have accepted some of the changes in our fluid (think mountain stream rapids) world better than others. I still do not understand how Tweeting can be any more effective than going out into the back yard and barking what I’m doing at trees. I type something and it does what? I have a Tweet account and a few followers, but I have nothing going on in my life that seems worth telling people. I’m delighted to have followers even though I have no expectation of holding their interest.

Recently I looked at my writing /dining table made from cherry and walnut harvested from our Mississippi property, milled, planed, and built by my little brother). You might remember how I described it back when I started my rewrite- with the legal tablets, two dozen sharpened pencils, index cards, long roll of paper for time-lining, pens, highlighters, a laser printer, my lucky charm (A buckeye my father gave me when I was about to start my first high-school newspaper column), a huge McCarty bowl for balls of rejected notes, and all ordered in the manner of an actual anal compulsive. Looking back on my life is more like standing in the stern of a speedboat admiring the towering rooster tail. Now weeks later, the order is a dim memory and I found myself peering into something akin to a coal mine.

I decided last week that what I needed was a computer program that would allow me to have everything organized and at the touch of (both) my trigger-fingertips. I type with two fingers, while staring at the keyboard. I didn’t fail typing class in high school, I was asked by the instructor to find another sort of machine to abuse. So I asked Joe Moore if such a program existed that would think the way I think, only organize things. I wanted it to accept my outline, transfer that outline to index cards that I could line up and sort as I wished, keep my notes, order my research, show me what I’ve written, thrown out… basically become my anal writing partner.

Joe gave me two. Scrivener and another I can’t recall. I looked at Scrivener and the other (Tweedle-dum or Flip-sticks or something) and ended downloading Scrivener, a very British program. The tutorial has “organization” spelled “organisation” and the videos are all by a gentleman who sounds like an Attenborough. According to the tutorial it not only does what I hoped it would, but will do it the way I think it should do. It has templates for non-fiction, novels, short stories, radio, film, and TVscripts, and poetry. A template for poetry? What would e e cummings or Sandburg have made of that? It is all that I (be I novelist or poet or BBC presenter) could have wished for. Did I mention it will format eBooks in all known formats and allow you to add cover art?

Now all I have to do is figure out how to use it. My wife understands it, which means I may never do.

So this oldling is still working on Word with this rewrite, but I am going to write my next book using this amazing program (and it’s only $45.00 US which is cheaper than hiring an anal compulsive assistant for just part of one day). I am not recommending it yet. The thing is, if I can figure it out, I’ll either tweet about it, or maybe I’ll sing its praises to the trees in my back yard.